\n<\/p>\n
Reece James returned from injury as England beat Norway 2-1 after extra time to reach the 2026 World Cup semi-finals.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Chelsea captain started Saturday\u2019s quarter-final on the bench in Miami. Blues team-mate Trevoh Chalobah was also among Thomas Tuchel\u2019s substitutes.<\/p>\n Norway took the lead through Andreas Schjelderup in the first half. However, Jude Bellingham equalised before the interval after collecting Anthony Gordon\u2019s pass.<\/p>\n James entered in the 71st minute as Gordon made way. The 26-year-old initially joined Elliot Anderson in central midfield before later moving to right-back.<\/p>\n His appearance came after\u00a0Thomas Tuchel confirmed James had returned to England training\u00a0following a hamstring problem.<\/p>\n England faced several difficult moments before taking the game into extra time.<\/p>\n Torbjorn Heggem had a header ruled out following a push by Erling Haaland. David Moller Wolfe also struck the crossbar as Norway threatened to regain the lead.<\/p>\n England scored the winner three minutes into extra time. Morgan Rogers\u2019 powerful effort was parried by Orjan Nyland, allowing Bellingham to convert the rebound.<\/p>\n James remained on the pitch as England protected their advantage. Chalobah was an unused substitute during the\u00a02-1 quarter-final victory.<\/p>\n For Chelsea, James\u2019 successful return was the main positive. He completed almost 50 minutes across two positions without suffering an obvious setback.<\/p>\n His versatility could also interest Xabi Alonso. James can operate at right-back, wing-back or in midfield when Chelsea need greater control in possession.<\/p>\n England will now play Argentina or Switzerland in Atlanta on Wednesday. James has put himself in contention for another role as Tuchel\u2019s side chase a place in the World Cup final.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reece James returned from injury as England beat Norway 2-1 after extra time to reach…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Reece James Offers Chelsea Fitness Lift<\/h2>\n